March 2011

Goodbye to My Ice Cream Scoop

Tonight I had a sad loss in my kitchen–my favourite ice cream scoop, which I use for scooping cupcake batter. That ice cream scoop had a long history and it will be sadly missed in my kitchen, although I probably won’t be able to force myself to throw it out.

I grew up in Robinsonville, New Brunswick, next door to my grandparents, my mom’s parents, who owned a general store, and between our houses was a small diner that they also owned. The photo above, most likely from the 1940s, shows the general store in its glory days before supermarkets were born and at that time there was a gas station where the diner would eventually be. They sold everything from dry goods and milk to clothing, yarn and jewelry. The diner came along in the 1950s and sometime during the 40 year history of the diner, the scoop began its long life scooping ice cream out of huge containers at the diner.

I came along much later; but eventually I too scooped ice cream with that scoop. When my family closed the diner in the 90s, I had to keep the scoop (ice cream and I have had a long love-hate relationship). In the beginning the scoop was only ever used for its true purpose; but sometime after beginning to decorate cakes in 2006, I began making cupcakes and the scoop had a new purpose in life. I think it goes to show that things really were made so much better back in the old days.

The funny thing is, back then I didn’t do any baking for the diner. We had two very good cooks who made homemade pies, muffins and donuts every day. Now I’m known as the baker in the family, although tonight I didn’t live up to it; two dozen red velvet cupcakes went down like the Titanic with my favourite ice cream scoop. I’ll be back to baking tomorrow, just with a new scoop.